AFTER this, Olivia took up her life, as she thought, in firm hands. She had made her reparation to her old friends. She joined the family party of the Trivetts at dinner, and mixed with the “homely folk” that assembled around old John Freke’s tea table. She lived in a glow of contrition for past snobberies. The vague story of her separation from Triona which she had told to the two old men not sufficing Medlow curiosity, she told what she believed to be the truth. “My husband has gone to Poland to fight against the Russian Reds.”
And thereby she gave the impression that the cause of the break up of her married life was the incurable adventurous spirit of her husband. The suggestion fitted in with the town’s idea of the romance of her marriage and the legendary character of Alexis Triona, which had originally been inspired by the local bookseller eager to sell copies of Triona’s books. She herself, therefore, became invested in a gossamer garment of mystery, which she wore with becoming grace. Her homecoming was a triumph.
As the days passed and brought no news of Alexis, she grew convinced of the honesty of his last letter. His real achievements in the past confirmed her conviction. He was the born adventurer. It was like him to have sought the only field of mad action open at that hour of frantically guarded peace. He had gone to Poland. In her heart she rejoiced. She saw him striving to burn a past record and rise, Ph?nix-like, from its ashes.
“If he came back a Polish General, all over stars and glory,” said Myra, during one of their increasingly intimate conversations, “would you take up with him again?”
Olivia reddened. “I should be glad for his sake.”
“I don’t see that you’re answering my question,” said Myra.
“I’ve told you once and for all,” flashed Olivia, “that I’ll have nothing more to do with him as long as I live.”
She meant it with all that she knew of her soul. His fraud was unforgivable; his perfect recognition of it constituted his only merit. In Poland, doing wild things, he was a picturesque and tolerable personage. In her immediate neighbourhood, he became once again a repellent figure. As far as she could, she blotted him out of her thoughts.
The threat of exposure at the hands of Onslow and Wedderburn still hung over her head. The disgrace of it would react on her innocent self. The laughter of the Lydian galley rang in her ears. She guessed the cynical gossip of the newer London world. That was hateful enough. She need never return to either. But it would follow her to Medlow. She would be pitied by the Trivetts and the Frekes, and the parents of the present generation of Landsdowne House. They would wonder why, in the face of the revelations, she still called herself “Mrs. Triona.” To spring her plain Mrs. Briggs-dom on Medlow she had not the courage.
She took counsel with Blaise Olifant. In his soldier-scholar protecting way he seemed a rock of refuge. He said:
“Write to them through Rowington and ask them to hold their hands until you can put them into communication with your husband, which you give your word of honour to do as soon as you learn his address.”
She did so. The bargain was accepted. When she received Rowington’s letter, she danced into Olifant’s study, and, sitting on the corner of his table, flourished it in his face.
“Oh, the relief of it! I feel ten years younger. I was on the verge of becoming an old woman. Now it will never come out.”
Olifant leaned back in his chair and looked at her wistfully. A faint flush coloured her cheeks, and her eyes were lit with the gladness of hundreds of days ago. Her lips were parted, showing the white, girlish teeth. Sitting there, vividly alive, in the intimate attitude, smiling on him, she was infinitely desirable.
“No,” said he. “It will never come out.”
A cloud passed over her face. “Still, one never knows——”
“I have faith in Alexis,” said he. “He’s a man of his word.”
“I think you’re the loyalest creature that ever lived.”
He raised a deprecating hand. “I would I were,” said he.
“What do you mean by that?” she asked pleasantly.
“If I were,” said he, his nose seeming to lengthen over the wry smile of his lips, “if I were, I would go out into the world and not rest till I brought him back to you.”
She slid to her feet. “With a barber’s basin for a helmet, and the rest of the equipment. If you did such an idiot thing, I should hate you. Don’t you understand that he has gone out of my life altogether?”
“Life is a long, long time to look forward to, for a woman so young as yourself.”
“You mean, I might fall in love with somebody else, and there would be horrid complications?” She laughed in the cocksureness of youth. “Oh, no, my dear Blaise. Once bitten, twice shy. Three times, four times, all the multiplication table times shy.”
Though impelled by primitive instinct, he could not press her further. He found himself in a position of poignant absurdity, compensated by the sweetness of their daily companionship. Sometimes he wondered how it could be that an awakened woman like Olivia could remain in calm ignorance of his love. Yet she gave never a sign of knowledge. She accepted friendship with full hands and gave it with full heart. Beyond that—nothing. From his sensitive point of view, it was all for the best. If, like a lean spider, he sat down beside her and talked of love, he would indubitably frighten Miss Muffet away from Medlow. Further, she would hold him in detestation for intentions which, in the queer circumstances, had no chance of being what the world calls honourable. He therefore put up with what he could get. The proclamation of her eternal man-shyness sounded like her final word on her future existence. So he came back to Rowington.
“I’m glad that’s all settled,” said he. “Now you can take up the threads of life again.”
“What do you think I can make of them?” she asked.
“I can’t sit here idle all my life—not here, at ‘The Towers,’?” she laughed, “for I’m not going to inflict myself on you for a lifetime—but here, in the world.”
He had no practical suggestion to make; but he spoke from the sincerity of his tradition.
“A woman like you fulfils her destiny by being her best self.”
“But being good is scarcely an occupation.”
He smiled. “I give it up, my dear. If you like, I can teach you geology——”
She laughed. Geology had to do with dead things. She cared not a hang for the past. She wanted to forget it. The epoch of the dynosaurus and the period of the past year were, save for a few hundreds of centuries, contemporaneous. No past, thank you. The present and the future for her. The present was mere lotus-eating; delightful, but demoralising. It was the future that mattered.
“If only you were an astrologer, and could bind me apprentice,” she said. “No,” she added after a pause. “There’s nothing for it. I must do something. I think I’ll go in for Infant Welfare and breed bull-dogs.”
She watched him as he laboriously stuffed his pipe with his one hand by means of a little winch fixed to the refectory table and lit it by a match struck on a heavy mat stand; refraining from helping him, although all the woman in her longed to do so, for she knew his foibles. The very first time he had entered the house, he had refused her offer of help with his Burberry. He needed a woman to look after him; not a sister; not a landlady-lodger friend; a wife, in fact, whose arm and hand he would accept unquestionably, in lieu of his own. A great pity sprung in her heart. Why had no woman claimed him—a man stainless in honour, exquisite in thought, loyal of heart, and—not the least qualification for the perfect gentle knight in a woman’s eyes—soldier-like in bearing? There was something missing. That was all the answer she could give herself. Something intangible. Something magnetic, possessed by the liar and scamp who had been her husband. She could live with Blaise Olifant for a hundred years in perfect amity, in perfect sympathy . . . but with never a thrill.
She knew well enough the basis of sentiment underlying his friendship. If she were free to marry, he would declare himself in his restrained and dignified way. But with the barrier of the living Alexis between them, she laughed at the possibility of such a declaration. And yet, her inward laughter was tinged with bit............